About Cats
by ardavenport
Summary: Harry revisits his time at Privet Drive, but not in the way he expected.


**ABOUT CATS**

by ardavenport

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><p>Harry Potter stopped at the corner, turned and took a deep breath.<p>

"Is this it?" Ginny Weasley peered down the neat row of proper muggle homes with their tidy green front gardens, their ordered flower beds and trimmed and shaped bushes.

"Yep. This is it." A nearby street sign proclaimed the obvious, 'Privet Drive'.

"It looks nice," Ginny ventured with tentative optimism, but Harry just scowled. He never would have expected to ever see this street again, even for a short visit. But Ginny's mother had insisted otherwise.

'You can't just disappear, Harry. They're _family_. You have to tell them where you are. They don't have an owl, poor dears, and it would be rude for them to have to always reply using your owl even if it's just for a card for the holidays.'

Harry had assured Molly Weasley that any owls arriving at Number 4 Privet Drive would only upset his aunt and uncle now that the Ministry of Magic had reinstalled their family back in their old residence. Lord Voldemort was dead and the danger from him and his followers was gone and the Dursleys had returned from their 'extended holiday'. The story was that one of them (Harry did not know if it was his aunt, uncle or cousin) had needed a long holiday in a warmer climate for their health. Uncle Vernon even had his old job at Grunnings back. Harry had heard that the Ministry had managed a little promotion, reward for raising Harry, though he knew his uncle would give them no thanks or credit for it.

Ginny took his hand. "Want to get it over with?"

He squeezed her hand back. "Yeah, might as well."

They went up the walk. It was midday, a time that Harry had deliberately chosen; Uncle Vernon would be at work.

Going through the gate at Number 4, they walked up to the house together. Harry rang the bell. They heard movement inside and a moment later the door opened. A stranger stared back at them through the partially open door.

"Yes?" She was a plump girl with a round face, peering at them uncertainly. She had straight, very ordinary brown shoulder length hair that framed her face with a straight line of bangs over her pencil line eyebrows. Though she was heavy, with broad shoulders and prominent bust, she had a nice figure in a flowered blouse and dark skirt.

"Um, I wanted to talk to Petunia Dursley?" Harry started uncertainly. Had he gotten the story wrong from the Ministry? Had the Dursleys moved away after being forced to hide out from Harry's wizard enemies for nearly a year after all? But Harry's concern was banished when a familiar voice called out from inside the house.

"Who is it, Viv?".

"It's someone for your Mum!" she shouted back.

"So, who is it?!"

"Um, sorry, could you tell me your name?" Viv asked politely.

"I'm Harry Potter, I'm Petunia's nephew. I'm Dudley's cousin." he added hastily.

"Oh!" Her eyes went wide with surprise and then bounced up and down with apparent happiness, her whole body jiggling. "Oh!" She turned her head back into the house again. "It's your cousin, Duddie! Harry - Harry - uh," she paused uncertainly.

"Potter." Harry repeated obligingly.

"Harry Potter!" she finished with enthusiasm and pushed the door open wider.

After a loud thumping from the living room, Harry's cousin Dudley appeared. He was still as big as a bison - bigger than Uncle Vernon now - but not as flabby as Harry remembered with maybe a little bit of a tan on what little neck he had under his short thick blond hair. Perhaps he had kept up his boxing in the past year.

"Oy?" Dudley stumbled into view and stopped, filling in the open doorway, his watery blue eyes falling on Harry.

"Hi," Harry said, for lack of anything better to say.

Dudley's eyes shifted to his right.

"Oh, this is Ginny Weasley. You might have seen her at the train station when I came back from H - - school last year."

"Oh, you go to school together? Hi, I'm Vivian Mosley. Dudley and I don't go to the same school, but close enough to visit. Are you in school, too?"

"Uh - -" Harry started, but Vivian had turned to his cousin.

Dudley, you never said you had a cousin." The words came out in a bubbly tumble with a genuine smile. Dudley actually blushed.

"Oh, well, he doesn't live here anymore - -"

"You used to live here? You grew up together?" Vivian's eyes lit up with more wonder, which was briskly interrupted by Aunt Petunia's arrival. She wore a white apron over her green dress; she had doubtlessly been cleaning her already spotless house.

"Harry." Her voice was severe and accusatory as she inserted her bony body between the two bulkier young people. Her eyes shifted toward Vivian and Harry could see her internal debate raging behind them about how much of the family dirty linens she wanted to expose to her son's girlfriend. Dudley cringed, fearful that his mother would embarrass him.

"How are you doing?" Petunia finally finished with forced civility, cutting off Vivian who had opened her mouth, perhaps to invite the visitors inside.

"I'm doing all right. I've got a place of my own now." He was actually staying at Hogwarts for an unusual and very crowded summer of study, post-Voldemort Ministry of Magic trials and investigations and he still had to sort out Grimwald Place, the house that Sirius had left him. This was the first afternoon that he had gotten away from it all in weeks. "Um, that's why I'm here." He took out a card from a pocket and offered it. "I just wanted to give you my address."

Petunia's lip twitched as if Harry had just produced a mouse for her fastidiously clean kitchen and her fingers twitched hesitantly. So, she was not quick enough take it before Vivian snatched the card.

"Oh, really? Duddie, we should visit. Oh." Her lips turned down in a pouty frown as she turned the card over in disappointment. "It's just a mail box."

"Sorry, it's up north, not around here at all. That's just the best way for me to get mail." The best way for Harry to send or get mail was by owl, a mode that sent his Uncle Vernon into towering, red-faced fits, so in deference to his uncle's blood pressure Harry had made other arrangements. He had discovered a service called 'Muggle Mail' run by a perky witch who rented muggle mail box addresses, enchanted them so that anything placed in them was immediately transported to a proper Wizard post office so the item could arrive by owl.

Petunia whipped the card out of the girl's hand. "Well, thank-you."

"You got everything sorted out, now?" Dudley had finally collected his slow-moving thoughts.

Harry nodded to his cousin. "Yeah. Got it all sorted out. No more problems. It's done." It seemed so odd to be having this neutral bland discussion with Dudley, as if his life at Privet Drive of being Dudley's punching bag and the miserable summer holidays when he was not at Hogwarts all meant nothing. But it just wasn't important to Harry anymore, especially since it looked as if Dudley was satisfied with the truce between them as well.

"He - - the problems aren't coming back again?" Petunia hissed cautiously.

Harry nodded. "Yeah. It's done." Then he paused. "That boy you once mentioned, who used to be friends with my mother. Snape?"

Petunia's brows rose and Harry could read the recognition of the name in her eyes.

"He died," he finished.

"Oh," she said. "I'm - - sorry to hear that." She obviously wasn't sorry, but she said the words anyway. Aunt Petunia always kept up appearances. Harry wondered what he would see if he could steal some of his aunt's thoughts and walk through them in the pensieve as he had Severus Snape's last memories. How much more would he know about his mother, the witch sister that Petunia had bitterly disowned years ago?

Dudley looked completely mystified, but Vivian's frown turned into sympathy over the news. "Oh, that's a shame. I hope he wasn't ill."

"No, he - - " was murdered by Lord Voldemort. "No," he finished without explanation.

Aunt Petunia's expression soured into scorn. She had jealously dedicated her life to despising her sister's magical powers, Hogwarts and anything else connected to them. It was too much to hope that the announcement of a death of one of her sister's childhood friends might soften her attitude.

"Well, I . . . better get going." Harry ended their visit; Petunia was obviously not going invite them in. He supposed that he was just an intruder now. Privet Drive had never really had been home for him. The Dursleys made sure of that, in spite of his blood tie to Aunt Petunia.

"Have a nice life, Dudley." He extended a hand and his cousin took it in his big meaty palm.

"Yeah, the same to you, too, Harry."

He looked like he meant it, too. Harry had to marvel at how well he and Dudley could get along now that they were living in completely different worlds.

"Be seeing you," Dudley smiled. Unlike his mother, his time in hiding with his family seemed to have improved him; Harry's flicked a glance to Vivian. He wondered how much Dudley would tell her.

"Yeah," he answered with a small wave before turning away. Harry doubted that they would see each other much, if ever again. But perhaps there would be holiday cards sent after all, as Mrs Weasley said. Even after cutting herself off from her hated sister, their families still exchanged obligatory Christmas cards and gifts while Lilly was still alive. Aunt Petunia always kept up appearances.

Vivian's cheerful 'Good-bye!' followed as they walked away together back to the street. Ginny and Harry did not say anything for a few blocks.

"It looked like a nice house," Ginny finally offered as they headed toward the center of Little Whinging and the train station. Harry shrugged. Aunt Petunia's house was nice in its way and always clean; but it was the Dursleys' home, not his. Rehashing his miserable childhood seemed so unnecessary now. He was done with the Dursleys and now that he had made it official and now he was starting to feel pretty good about it. He supposed that this trip had been worthwhile after all.

He was much more interested in talking about Grimwald Place. He did not even know if he was going to keep the house he inherited from his godfather, Sirius Black. But even if he sold it, the place needed a lot of work. Ginny offered to help and then their talk moved on to her parents' overcrowded house and her childhood being the youngest of seven and when she realized that her parents had stopped having children when they finally had a girl. Harry had wondered about that; why couldn't a witch and wizard just magically choose the sex of their children? But performing any magic on an unborn child for any reason other than medical need was considered dark magic and forbidden. It was the same with doing magic to fix eyesight. Too many witches and wizards had made themselves magically and incurably blind with experimental spells. Why risk it when an ordinary pair of glasses fixed the problem?

After their very long walk, they boarded the train to London. Harry handled the muggle money and tickets for both of them. This was Ginny's first extended excursion into the muggle world and she looked out the window curiously at the houses and streets they passed on their way to London. Growing up in a wizarding household, the only bits of the muggle world she had ever seen were the parts that camouflaged magical entrances. She continued looking all around at the tall buildings, traffic and people as they went to the Underground. Harry was happy to see that she managed the entry right on the first try.

"It's all so . . . . big," she finally confessed softly to him as they sat down together. "There are so many muggles; we must be outnumbered hundreds to one, witches and wizards, I mean."

"Thousands to one. Hermione worked it out once," he added to her look of surprise. She shook her head.

"It makes you wonder how _He_ was planning to 'put muggles in their place'," she wondered, still avoiding uttering the Dark wizard's name, as so many witches and wizards still did. "Was he just going to kill them all? Even the numbers a bit?"

Harry had no doubt that this was exactly what Lord Voldemort would have done eventually had he not been defeated, an act too monstrous to imagine. But Voldemort was dead and gone and speculating on his theoretical genocide was pointless. Harry only shrugged. When they left the Underground, he led the way toward the Leaky Cauldron. But a block before they got there, they ducked into an ally between a restaurant and a flower shop for Harry to take a gray jacket out of his knapsack and put it on. Putting the hood of the jacket on, he added a blue knit over that, covering hair and the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. He replaced his glasses with ones with square wire frames. He had always been famous as the Boy Who Lived after Voldemort's first fall, but now he was the hero of the Battle of Hogwarts who had vanquished the Dark Lord for good. It was impossible for him to go anywhere in the wizarding world without being stopped by dozens of people who wanted to thank him, touch him, get a picture with him, marry him . . .

Suitably disguised, they went to the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron, disappearing from the muggle street into the magically concealed inn.

Tom at the bar was serving a couple of midday customers and did not pay any attention to the two people just passing through on their way to Diagon Alley. Ginny took her wand out to open the archway into Diagon Alley.

It was much improved from the last time Harry had been there when it was suffering the ravages of Lord Voldemort's influence. The wandless beggars were gone and there was cheerful new paint and decorations. Not all of the closed shops had re-opened but there were signs advertising their upcoming return. But best of all there was not a single one was selling any dark magic merchandise, probably all pushed back to Knockturn Alley which would not be too popular these days. Gringots looked completely repaired and brilliant white in the sunshine. The goblins had been angry at the damage from Harry and his friends' escape using the bank's own guard dragon which they then set free. They had been much more furious about the theft than the destruction of their lobby. They did not forgive the damage costs until every single coin was accounted for in all their vaults, proving that the one thing that had been stolen was used to destroy Voldemort. The goblins only grudgingly accepted that this had been a necessary loss, though they still loudly denounced the evils of stealing.

Head down, Harry walked slower as the Eeylops Owl Emporium came into view. A little witch in a purple sweater huffed and bustled around them. He looked either way at the sparse foot traffic before crossing the street. It seemed to be a light shopping day.

"Oh." He stared at the small sign on the door that promised that the Owl Emporium would re-open 'VERY SOON'. The building looked freshly painted and Harry was sure he saw movement inside, but apparently they were not ready for customers yet. "Oh, I guess we'll have to come back later. Maybe next week."

"Harry." Ginny took his arm. "You promised Mum that you would get your own owl and stop borrowing Pig." She named Harry's friend Ron's energetic but diminutive owl.

"Yeah, but if they're not open - - "

"We can go to the Magical Menagerie. They're open. We passed it on the way here."

"But they'll more owls here."

"Well, we can at least tell Mum we looked, even if we don't find one you like." Ginny put her hands on her hips as she knocked down his latest excuse.

He sighed. "Okay." They turned around, going back up the street. Mrs. Weasley had been politely dropping hints for weeks that maybe he should get his own owl to handle his mail and Ron had been outright telling him. He was getting a lot of mail now, especially official things from the Ministry of Magic. And he got dozens and dozens of owls every day from witches and wizards all over the wizarding world carrying their gratitude to him for defeating the Dark Lord. Some of them had some very heartfelt stories of personal tragedy inflicted by Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Those were forwarded to the Ministry which was doing a full accounting of their crimes. His friend Hermione and Mrs. Weasley insisted that he had to send something back and had worked out a quick spell for him to produce a generic but polite reply card that could go back with the owls. He did not feel right using them for anything else.

"Hedwig was a beautiful owl." Ginny slid her hand into his. "I know you miss her, but its time to get another one."

"Yeah." He nodded and squeezed her hand back. Hagrid had bought her for him the day after he learned he was a wizard, his first real birthday present ever. A beautiful snowy owl, she had gone with him to Hogwarts and stayed with him during his unpleasant summer breaks at the Dursley's house. But nearly a year ago, a flash of green from the Death Eaters sent her plummeting to the ground, dead. She had sometimes shunned him when he got them both into trouble with the Dark Lord's servants or the Dursleys, but she had never failed him, even at the worst of times.

Arriving at the Magical Menagerie, Ginny waited for him to go in first before following him inside. He didn't see any other customers and it did not look as full of creatures as he remembered. Though there were still shelves full of cages of squawking, squealing and hissing creatures, there were also quite a few empty spaces. A row of owls glared down at him from above; none of them looked very friendly. Ginny frowned at them, too.

"Well, I guess if we could come back if that's all they have . . . "

A witch at the counter was counting out galleons and sickles to a woman in a plastic bonnet over fly away gray hair.

"I'm so glad you were able to bring them in, Arabella. It's been so difficult for us to re-stock. Some people are just coming out of hiding. The Emporium still hasn't re-opened. I shudder when I think of what some of those Death Eaters did to some of our suppliers. I was so glad to hear from you."

Head down, Harry passed by a display of squeaking, whirring pet toys and a bare dusty table. He glimpsed a pair of tartan carpet slippers on the feet of the woman at the counter.

Ginny bumped into him as he turned around.

"Mrs. Figg?"

The woman turned around, squinting up at him as she dropped the last of her money into a pouch hanging around her neck. He was surprised. He didn't remember her being so short.

"Harry?" Her tone rose in recognition as she came closer. "Oh, Harry! I'm surprised to see you here. But I'm glad of it," she added with a broad grin. "You're all anybody's talking about these days. And what have you done to your face? You look different." She pointed at his glasses.

"Oh, um" Harry turned his back to the counter and walked a few steps away from the witch who was looking curiously at him. "I'm just trying not to attract to much attention," he told her quietly. "This is Ginny Weasley," he hastily introduced them. "We just came here looking for an owl."

"Oh." She scanned the owls above. "Oh, dear, they're not a very friendly lot. All business. Not that good for personal use. Not much selection, either. You might want to wait. They'll have more to choose from as soon as their other suppliers come out of hiding. That's where I've been, staying with my damned patronizing cousin, I just came in with some cats to sell them."

"You've been hiding out?"

"Yes, of course I was. Are you daft? What do you think the Death Eaters would have done with a squib like me?" She batted his arm. Then her face puckered as if she'd eaten a lemon whole. "Ugh, but I have to admit that I've got to find a new situation; I can't keep staying with my cousin, the git, now that I don't have to. Oh, hello dear,"

"Um, have we met before?" Ginny asked, shaking the older woman's hand.

"Oh, that was probably at Albus Dumbledore's funeral. I saw all you Weasleys there. That was so sad. Only just a year ago, too." She shook her head. Mrs. Figg had come to the funeral like so many others and Harry had exchanged only a perfunctory greeting. He had not even thought about his childhood neighbor since then.

Ginny's expression changed to one of recognition. "Harry told me you had . . . cats." Harry had told her that she had been secretly watching over him on Dumbledore's orders (even he did not know this until his fifth year at Hogwarts) and that she was a cat-crazy old lady with a smelly house whose best feature was that it did not have Dursleys in it. That had got him a frown of disapproval from Ginny. She liked cats.

"Oh, yes; I breed them you know." Mrs. Figg reached out and squeezed Harry's arm. "Dumbledore would have been so proud of you. But is it true what they're saying in _The Prophet_? That Snape was working for Dumbledore all along? Even though he's the one who killed him?"

It was one of the top questions that anyone who hadn't been at the final battle at Hogwarts asked Harry. He nodded. "Yeah, he was. Dumbledore got hit by an old booby-trap curse of Voldemort's and Snape agreed to help him cover it up and kill him if he had to since he was already dying. That way he could still work against him without Voldemort knowing who he was really working for. I couldn't have managed killing Voldemort without his help."

After wincing at each mention of 'Voldemort's name, she shrugged. "Well, I didn't really know him. Don't know anyone who trusted him, except Dumbledore. Still it came out right in the end, so I suppose all that counts."

"Are you finished?" A large woman with wispy gray hair in a green and yellow robe pushed past them to frown at Mrs Figg. "I can't be hanging around for you all day, holding your hand you know. I've got things to do."

"Oh, really, Phidelia. You've always got things to do and you never get around to doing them." Mrs Figg poked back at the woman crossly. "You couldn't be bothered to take a little more time not doing them while I finish my business here?"

"Just because I was kind enough to take you in when You-Know-Who was cursing everyone . . . ."

Harry and Ginny hastily moved away from the argument. The witch at the counter shook her head and tsk-ed.

"Oh, that awful woman; she's going to hold that over poor Arabella's head for the rest of her life, that she 'took her in at great risk to herself' just because she's a squib, poor dear. But you never hear Arabella Figg moaning about it. She does the best she can and she holds her head up doing it. If you ask me the wrong person in that family got shorted on magic; that cousin of hers doesn't do half as much with her life." she huffed and pointed at three mew'ing cages on the counter, the young cats inside switched their tails, their eyes fixed on the cousin. "She breeds the best, smartest cats for us. Would you like to have a look?"

Ginny had already crossed over to the cages. Ginny liked cats. One of them was already purring loudly back at her. Harry felt a thrill of dread that they might leave with one of them instead of an owl. He did not dislike cats, but whenever the Dursleys deposited him at Mrs. Figg's cabbage-and-cat-scented home, he had to endure hours of looking at stacks of fat feline photo albums.

"Oh, she's a doll, isn't she?" The witch at the counter offered to take one of the cats out for Ginny to hold. Harry wondered if one of Mrs. Figg's cats came with complimentary photos. Phidelia was slowly herding her squib cousin toward the door with complaints about how she should be more grateful and how much trouble it would be taking her into Diagon Alley next week. And Mrs. Figg loudly promised that she would no longer burden her with the chore as soon as she could manage it.

Harry reached inside his pocket and put his hand around his regular glasses. He wondered how Mrs. Figg got into Diagon Alley before she was forced into hiding from the Death Eaters. More sympathetic friends or family? Dumbledore? Had Mr. Figg had magic? And what happened to him? Was she a widow? Had Mr. Figg been killed by Death Eaters? He had no idea; he had never thought to ask. But even without magic, she had still served in the Order of the Phoenix. And though his childhood memories of her were of a batty lady who bored him for hours in her strange house with everything-about-cats, he couldn't remember her once being mean or cross with him. And she never had any magic at all in a family where probably everyone else did.

Taking off the wire-frames, he put on his regular glasses and swept off his hat and the hood of his gray jacket, pushing his bangs back, exposing his lightning scar.

"Uh, Mrs. Figg?"

The two women stopped at the door. He walked up to them.

"I heard you saying that you were coming back next week? Well, it looks like I'm going to have to come back for my owl, I'd be happy if you would come with me."

The look of surprise on Mrs. Figg's face was barely a tenth of the shock that registered on Phidelia's.

"Y-y-you, you're Harry Potter!" She grabbed her cousin's arm. "You-you-you know Harry Potter?!

Mrs. Figg recovered and straightened proudly facing him. "Well, that's very kind of you, Harry. I think that would be a lot more pleasant trip than this one has been."

"You never told me you knew Harry Potter," Phidelia accused Mrs. Figg before dashing forward and grabbing Harry's hand. "So honored to meet you! I just don't know what to say," she finished with a nervous giggle.

"Well, of course I didn't tell you I knew Harry Potter. I couldn't go blabbing that kind of thing about could I? Lead You-Know-Who's crowd right to him? I'm not a fool like you." Mrs. Figg answered a little smugly with a grateful smile toward Harry.

"Your cousin used to babysit for me when I was little." Harry managed to retrieve his hand from her.

Phidelia's eyes grew wide. "Really? Oh, oh, yes, you were raised by muggles. Oh, my grandmother's wand, I had no idea, Arabella. I just don't know what to say. You really should have told me."

Mrs. Figg dismissed her confession. "Why? I'm not as helpless as you like to think."

"Yes." Ginny joined them. She had a purring cat cradled in each arm and the witch from the counter, who now stared in awe at Harry, held a third. "And since we're not buying owls today, Harry, perhaps we could have a long talk with Mrs. Figg - - " She hugged a silvery-gray cat with yellow eyes, while the orange tabby meow-ed at him. They looked awfully similar to ones in pages and pages of muggle cat-photos that he once dreaded to look at on endless summer days during his childhood. " - - about cats."

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><p><strong>******* END *******<strong>

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><p><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: All characters and situations belong to JKR; I'm just playing in her sandbox.


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